


Number XIII

by ALiteralLizardYo



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Also Castle Oblivion members come back as Somebodies earlier than in canon, Also Roxas may meet the Lingering Will, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angsty Angry Roxas, Anti-Villains, Anyway DiZ dies RIP you nasty man, Axel legit tries to murder teenagers but don't worry nobody cool dies, Game: Kingdom Hearts II, Gen, Knight Templar Big Brother Axel, Organization XIII (Kingdom Hearts), Repairing broken Axel & Roxas friendship, Sora Just Wants Roxas To Be His Bro, Villain Protagonists, What-If, bc it won't fit in my other planned fic and I wish to torment Terra
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2020-12-24 15:02:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21101411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALiteralLizardYo/pseuds/ALiteralLizardYo
Summary: What if Axel HAD managed to knock Roxas out in Data Twilight Town and bring him back to the Organization? Sora, Donald, and Goofy wake up, but now Organization XIII has their own Keybearer back.AKA, Kingdom Heart II, but Axel and Roxas still in the Organization.





	Number XIII

His chakrams scored past Roxas's defenses over and over again, leaving the kid bloody and breathing hard, and still the stubborn kid refused to go down. Axel didn't know if he should admire his friend's tenacity or be angry at him for never making Axel's life any easier. Even without his real memories, Organization XIII's Key of Destiny put up a better fight than he would've expected from a "normal" teen and Axel found himself begrudgingly impressed.

But it was for Roxas's sake that he had to end this little fight ASAP.

"Stubborn as ever, _Roxas!"_ he called out as he shot a flame towards Roxas's hands, hoping to make him drop the Keyblade. Roxas dodged out of the way with gritted teeth, and kept refusing to say anything. Axel didn't expect how much it'd sting to have Roxas look at _him_ like an enemy.

_Now I know how Xigbar feels,_ he thought, forcing a cocky grin at the blue daggers Roxas was sending his way. He flung his right chakram spinning out at Roxas with a mocking, "Look sharp!"

As expected, Roxas threw himself to the side to avoid the giant bladed projectile, but Axel had already dismissed the still-flying chakram and conjuring up a rush of flames to carry him to his target, fast as they could materialize. Feeling heat blast his back, Roxas started to twist around with his Keyblade up to guard a hit, but-

"Lights out," Axel quipped before he slammed the flat side of his other chakram into the back of Roxas's skull and the teenaged Nobody went limp. Axel caught him in the practiced motion of one accustomed to knocking out troublesome targets, and though he knew the blow was clean, he found himself turning the blond's slumped head, looking for blood and finding none. Yet he let his hand linger on Roxas's head a moment longer. _Sorry about that, little buddy._

Then his eyes narrowed and the semblance of softness drained out of them at the sound of the voice behind him.

"A pitiful performance for a Keybearer... but perhaps what was to be expected for such a creature. Wouldn't you agree?"

Axel hefted Roxas over his shoulder and gave a cold smile to his visitor. "DiZ. So, it _was_ you."

With a flick of the wrist, he sent the chakram he still had out towards the robed man. DiZ didn't move, and the chakram flew through him, distorting his image before it reformed. The chakram landed with a clatter and disappeared.

"A hologram, huh?"

"Ah, so Nobodies _can_ tell the difference. The Dusks gave me the impression that they did not, the way they confused data with reality." DiZ nodded at the unconscious Roxas, and chuckled. "To say nothing of the delusions _that_ one harbors. A Nobody that thinks it's a person... that it has _friends..."_ He laughed again, whether laughing at how he'd tricked Roxas or at Nobodies like Roxas having friends, Axel couldn't tell. "How completely absurd."

At last the smile Axel had been wearing fell off, and now his eyes were even colder than his smile. "That's pretty ironic, coming from you."

"Oh, really? How so?" the bastard asked. Funny how even a Nobody like Luxord sounded more genuinely polite than him.

It was clear to Axel that DiZ had come up to bait him, keep him and Roxas in here long enough to buy time for his little helper. Unfortunately for them, Axel had already seen to it that Riku would be buried up to his neck in Assassins and Dusks until Axel got around to him.

"You've spent so long hounding us, DiZ. Interfering in our business, trying to keep us from getting our hearts back, because you think we don't deserve to exist at all," Axel said in the mockingly thoughtful tone he reserved for playing with hero-types and people he'd earmarked as future charcoal. "You people with hearts all think you matter so much more than us. That you're so much more _deserving_ of life."

DiZ scoffed. _"Nobodies_ are not _alive,"_ he said icily, and Axel grinned openly at the barely restrained hatred seeping through the human's words, relished in his seething contempt of Axel and Roxas and their kind. "I hesitate to call what you are even an _existence,_ pale and hollow as it is."

"I could say the same about you," Axel purred, and what little of the robed man's face he could see twisted in rage. "That's why this is so funny to me, DiZ. You wasted your life chasing after us, and now you're going to die without accomplishing anything. No one is going to remember you. In the end, your existence mattered even less than a Nobody's."

"I think _not,"_ DiZ hissed, and as Axel snapped his fingers and conjured a dark corridor, the fake Twilight Town started to glitch out.

Roxas started to glitch out with it. In one second, he was in his Organization coat; in the next, in Sora's clothes. And though he _knew_ what they were up to, having it spelled out like that in front of him -

_Oh hell no, not NOW!_ Axel snarled, a prickle of desperation in the space his heart should be. At a loss for anything else to do, he looped an arm around the smaller body unmoving against him, pressing him tight to his own form as though to remind Roxas that he was flesh-and-blood, not another part of the program. The world disappeared but Axel, Roxas, and the hologram of DiZ remained, standing in a white void with the town above them and then gone - taking the dark corridor with it. Axel scanned the area but didn't relax his grip on Roxas. If Axel hadn't been holding as tightly onto Roxas as he was, he had no doubt that the teenaged Nobody would've been torn away, whisked off with the simulation and beyond Axel's grasp.

_Dammit,_ Axel thought, then shot off a new telepathic command to one of the Nobodies swarming Riku.

_Yes, my liege,_ it replied.

"You cannot escape, Axel, and I assure you that I will enjoy seeing your meaningless attempts to the contrary far more than you will." Between red bandages, DiZ's orange eye gleamed with malice. "Release Roxas, however, and I will show mercy."

"Oh?"

"You will be deleted, rather than left to rot here in the void. For a Nobody, I call _that_ mercy."

_What I'm going to do to you won't be,_ Axel promised emotionlessly, before he put on a sardonic smile. "Aww. Coming from you, that really IS generous. Too bad, though. There's just two problems with it."

DiZ was either too controlled to let his fear slip through, or he was too stupid to realize how dangerous it was to have Organization XIII's assassin smiling at him like that.

"First off, there's no way in hell I'm letting you sacrifice Roxas in your half-baked little scheme to fix Sora. He's coming back with me, and I'm going to kill you and everyone else involved in this for even trying it," Axel said in an exceptionally friendly voice. "Second..."

DiZ jerked, his eye going wide as he noticed something beyond the void. "How did that get in h- NO! Don't let it touch the-"

Axel raised his index finger to catch his attention. _"That_ was the second thing." DiZ's hologram shouted and glitched out too, and without wasting another second, Axel summoned another dark corridor.

When he stepped out of the digitizer, he was greeted by a scene of chaos as DiZ tried to use something that only faintly resembled a gun to shoot bursts of light energy at the Dusk on the computer that was still spraying out sparks from the blows Axel had ordered it to deal. The Dusk danced between each shot, sometimes outright twisting and stretching its body like a cartoon character to do so.

_Okay, fun's over. Back to the imposter,_ Axel told it, amused, and it replied with another mechanical _Yes, my liege_ before stepping with clumsy grace out of the room.

Seeing light from the digitizer out of the corner of his eye, DiZ turned to aim the device at Axel, and THERE was the look of fear Axel had been craving. DiZ went to pull the trigger, but Axel was a quicker shot, and as he threw out his hand, five jets of flame raced from his fingertips and hit DiZ.

_They're magical protection,_ Axel pieced together upon seeing his fire crawled across DiZ's bandages and robes without turning them to ash. _Same as our coats._ In fact, judging by Riku's coat, its magic might've been stolen from their uniform. Knowing the limits of their coats, Axel COULD blast DiZ with enough fire to wipe out his protection...

But...

Smiling demonically, Axel summoned the chakram that'd flown through DiZ's hologram into the hand not holding Roxas, and shouting in panic, the real DiZ summoned a dark corridor and made to flee into it.

"Oh no you DON'T!" Axel flung his chakram in a lethal spiral, and watched it slice into the man's back in a gush of blood, sinking deep enough that when DiZ tried to look down at his front, Axel figured the spikes would be sticking out of his abdomen. DiZ let out a strangled, wretched scream that made Axel's grin widen. He gestured the chakram back to him and as it left DiZ's body, more blood spilled out in its absence.

"No... you don't understand..." DiZ gasped, and seeing his own lifeblood pouring out his gut onto his feet, his voice was pathetically thin and frail.

But Axel was a Nobody. He didn't care.

"Goodbye, DiZ."

As always, the chakram found its mark.

DiZ's body collapsed to the floor, his red robes now drenched a darker shade, but his head did fall through the dark corridor before it fizzled out, and as his boots clicked along the floor tiles on his way out the room, Axel got an empty chuckle wondering where it'd turn up.

_One down._

XXX

"So THIS is where you've been all this time," Axel remarked, looking up at his best friend's Other. The boy was a year older since he'd seen him last and his new height making the shorts look even more ridiculous than before. Axel focused on the little differences instead of how much he looked like Roxas. It was really too bad, Axel reflected. He'd really kinda liked the kid. Fun to mess with, a damned decent fighter, and he'd surprised Axel a few times. He didn't even blame Sora for all this; Roxas's Other had been asleep for all this, and Axel suspected he wouldn't have approved of this had he known about it. He was a real goody two-shoes like that.

"Sorry, kiddo," Axel told him. "You deserve a better send-off than this. But..." He shrugged, jostling Roxas's head. The kid mumbled something unintelligible before lapsing back into sleep, oblivious to how close the Sora he'd been so intent on finding before he lost his memories was, and Axel couldn't help the affectionate smile that crossed his face as he glanced at him.

"Well, I got my own friend I have to protect, and he won't be safe until you're out of the picture," he finished. "Nothing personal. So no hard feelings, right?"

Ah, he'd have to leave this part out of the story once Roxas woke up, wouldn't he? Roxas would push him away again and storm off in a huff if he found out Axel had killed his Other after all the time Roxas had spent asking about him. Maybe it was his fault, maybe he'd indulged the kid too much, but Axel wished Roxas would just UNDERSTAND the risks he was putting them both at and accept for once that Axel was just looking out for him.

If Sora lived, someone else might get the bright idea of fusing his Nobody with him to wake him up. Hell, Xemnas might get tired of keeping their unruly Keybearer under control and order it done himself!

On the other hand... if Sora died, Roxas would be indispensable to the Organization as the only Keybearer left. They'd have no choice but to take him back, and keep him protected from the meddling Somebodies as Kingdom Hearts was being completed.

When put like that, Axel's choice became obvious.

He lifted his fingers, ready to click and incinerate the sleeping Somebodies.

"Axel, stop," Naminé pleaded, and his hand dropped.

_"There_ you are," he said coolly, rounding on his fellow Nobody. She didn't shrink away under his piercing stare as she once did, and like Sora, she'd grown taller. "Figured you had to be involved in this. Messing with Roxas's memories, playing with people like little dolls..." He shot her a vicious smirk. "You haven't changed a bit. You're the same as ever, Naminé."

This time, she did wince, but when she spoke, her voice was firm. "I won't let you hurt Sora."

"Oh, don't worry, I'm not going to hurt him," he said, and that was true, because he was going to KILL Sora. "If I were you, I'd worry about me."

She looked startled, then pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes. The determined expression looked foreign on Naminé's face. "I won't go back. I promised myself that I would NEVER help the Organization again."

She wouldn't, Axel had something else in mind for her, but he didn't see a need to tell her that. Recapturing her might put Xemnas in a more forgiving mood, but her powers would be useless without Sora alive to manipulate and since she had helped DiZ by changing Roxas's memories, she was on his hit-list too. Thanks to his work in Castle Oblivion, he knew how her powers functioned, which meant he only needed one piece of information before he killed her.

"Tell me where you put the drawings, Naminé," he ordered, and she bit her lip, looking conflicted. Drawing the memories on paper drew them out of her target so she could reshape them and put them back as she wished. That was how she'd tampered with Roxas's memories. If he found and destroyed them, it'd undo the alterations she'd made and unseal Roxas's true memories, and Roxas would remember everything.

"Axel," she started, looking at him and then the floor with sad blue eyes that made Axel feel nothing. "Please... leave, and let us take care of Roxas. He'll never be happy with Organization XIII. You and I know that, and so does Roxas. He was so confused and unhappy there, and... he just wanted answers. He wanted to be whole. This is...the best thing for him, can't you see that?" She raised imploring eyes back to Axel's impassive face. "If you're his best friend... shouldn't you want Roxas to be happy? "

"Of course I do," Axel said. He was actually somewhat offended. "That's WHY I'm stopping this."

"But... why?"

"Because your little PLAN wouldn't be helping Roxas, it'd destroy him," he said bluntly, and Naminé's big fake-sad eyes went wide with fake-surprise. "Almost any other Nobody, and yeah, this would go off without a hitch, and they'd thank you for it after. That's because most of us ARE our Others, just minus the emotions. We could go back to them, and bam, we'd snap back together into one complete being again, just like that!" He snapped his fingers and smiled emptily.

"But like you, Roxas is different from the rest of us, born without memories of his past self. Without that, he had to form his own identity, and created his own personality and his own independent existence. Now he's too different from Sora for them to fuse back perfectly. If Roxas went back to Sora, they wouldn't merge together all nice and neat the way you think. One personality would have to be the one in control, calling the shots... while the other would be trapped inside his own body like a prisoner."

Axel had no illusions as to who'd win THAT fight. Roxas was strong-willed (sometimes too much so), but Sora had 14 years in the driver's seat while Roxas was barely scraping a year. Existing came easily to Somebodies. Controlling Roxas's body would be so effortless to Sora he wouldn't even be conscious of doing it, would never even notice the other personality struggling for control, leaving Roxas stranded in that hell. Forced to watch as Sora stole his body and his life, unable to ever move on his own again, unable to even speak or make his own choices...

Roxas wanted to be complete again (they all did) and he'd wanted to find Sora, but he never would've agreed to THAT.

Which meant, the only way Roxas could be whole AND stay his own person was if he got his OWN heart. Which meant, like it or not, he'd have to put up with working for the Organization awhile longer.

"No, that... can't be," Naminé whispered. Her hands were trembling as she looked between Roxas and Sora, and if Axel didn't know she was a Nobody, he might've mistaken the anguish in her face as genuine. "I..."

"Last chance to answer before I stop asking so nicely," Axel said. "The drawings you used for Roxas's memories. Where?"

Naminé didn't speak; Axel supposed she was still trying to resolve the cognitive dissonance between her loyalty to Sora and her instinctive self-preservation. Whatever it was, he didn't care.

The chakram he'd used to eliminate DiZ appeared in his hand, still smeared in gore. Axel twirled it to make its sparks catch fire.

"Tick-tock, Naminé," he warned.

"Leave her alone, Axel," ordered a new voice, one he didn't recognize. Axel turned, finding what he initially thought must be another imposter wearing the Organization cloak, except for the Keyblade in his hand that Axel recognized. Annoyed, Axel telepathically reached out to the Nobodies he'd ORDERED to keep the imposter busy, and found that they'd all been wiped out, even his Assassins.

"Why am I not surprised," he sighed, before smiling at Riku with faux friendliness. "Yo, Riku! I didn't recognize you at first."

"You wouldn't," 'Riku' said darkly, because Axel supposed everything about him had to be. The Keybearer brandished his Keyblade at Axel, continuing to speak in the bizarre new adult voice. "Leave Roxas here, and you can leave in one piece."

"Not happening." With a mental command, he reached into the remaining reservoir of Assassins and Dusks, calling them into this world. Naminé took a small step back, and Riku, ever the gentleman, took a defensive stance in front of her. Maybe he thought of her as Kairi. Axel would've rolled his eyes if he gave a shit.

Instead he grinned at them, and tapping into the memories of the kind of burning rages he'd had as Lea, he brought flames into the room, lighting it all on fire. Riku stayed silent, his hood turned to look at Axel, but Naminé gasped and called out, "Riku!"

"I've got this," Riku said. "Get them out of their pods and somewhere safe. I'll cover you."

"Aww, that's so SWEET, Riku!" Axel sneered as Naminé rushed off to the control pads for the pods the Somebodies slept in. "You're a true friend, all the way to the end!"

_Kill them ALL,_ he ordered, and the lesser Nobodies fell in on them in a sycophantic choir of _Yes, my liege._

"Too bad I can't say the same for you," Riku retorted, slashing through the Nobodies around Naminé. "Naminé!" he called out in warning as Axel sent his chakram burning towards her. The girl dropped into a kneel, squeezing her eyes shut as it whizzed above her head so close she could surely feel the heat on her scalp.

"Tch." Axel switched his focus to Riku, wishing he had both hands free to send out both chakrams, and yet unwilling to let go of Roxas, not until the kid was back in the castle. Back _home._ Still, even up against a Keybearer, his odds were pretty good; Riku had his own hands full trying to beat back the lesser Nobodies AND protect Naminé, all while keeping clear of the growing flames all around them. He couldn't try to charge Axel without leaving his co-conspirator vulnerable.

His luck couldn't hold up forever, though, and it didn't. Caught up in hitting Axel's chakram back at him, Riku wasn't quick enough to dodge the Assassin lashing at him from beneath the floor, its spiked arms cutting through his leg. Riku fell to the floor with a cry of pain.

"RIKU!" Naminé screamed, sounding close to tears.

"I'm fine! Keep working!"

"Really?" Axel drawled. "Looks to me like your time is up, Riku."

"I'd hoped I'd never have to use this again," Riku muttered, quiet enough that Axel didn't hear it. The redheaded Nobody cocked his head, putting a hand up to his ear with a playful "Hm?"

Riku swept his hood back, and at this Axel drew back in shock. It was the Superior staring at him, but it couldn't be, the face was twisted in a grimace Xemnas would never lower himself to, the orange eyes filled with emotion Xemnas could only dream of emulating. Behind the imposter, a great black shadow rose, and roared.

"Hurry, Naminé!" the imposter bellowed, and the girl went back to the machines, punching in codes with shaking fingers as the roof started falling in.

Axel gritted his teeth a moment, torn between conflicting instincts: to stay and finish the job, and to flee to safety with Roxas. But Axel was cocky, not stupid, and if he stayed, he knew in the pit of his stomach he wouldn't win. Not with the way that THING was tearing through Nobodies like wet paper on its way to him and Roxas.

_Dammit,_ he seethed, _dammit, dammit, DAMMIT._

Axel conjured up another dark corridor and as he retreated, he threw out a white-hot whip of fire towards the creature, hoping less that it'd kill it and more that it'd delay it. "BURN, baby!" he snarled, and the monster howled its rage as he and Roxas were swallowed up by the dark, leaving the mansion to burn down.

XXX

_Where... am I? What happened?_

_Huh? Who're you?_

_I... My name is Roxas. Right?_

_Roxas? I'm_

XXX

"Sora?" someone, a girl, said in disbelief as Sora came to. He blinked and her face swam into focus above him. He knew that face.

"Kairi?" he muttered, but that wasn't right, there was something wrong with that but he didn't know what.

"No," the girl said, and despite the negative in her words, suddenly she was smiling, something like wonder in her eyes. "No, I'm... Naminé."

"Naminé..." Sora repeated, and as he tried to process this, he saw tears in her eyes too and instantly he sat up, concern overwhelming him. "Huh?! What's wrong?"

She giggled wetly. "Nothing's wrong," she said, and yes she was still smiling.

"Then... Why are you crying?" Sora asked, befuddled.

"I'm just... really glad that you're awake, Sora," Naminé told him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so, uh, my Axel is super cold-blooded and murderous towards the heroes rn? A lot of *vague hand motion* THIS comes from my headcanon as him having a bigger role as an antagonist in II (give my nasty crime boi his screentime D:), more actively trying to turn Sora into a Heartless and also gunning after Riku, DiZ, and Namine for what they did to Roxas, because he's SUCH a cool villain I can't help but play around more with it (the sympathetic motives are a sweet bonus). He'll probably chill out some once he's got Roxas home safe and they start hanging out as friends again, BUT he's still going to be a bigger antagonist here than in II, because he's toeing the Organization line to keep him and Roxas alive and also trying to kill off Sora and friends to put a stop to anymore "let's put em back together again! :D" shenanigans. Don't worry tho, I'll keep them safe, he'll only get to kill off DiZ (sorry DiZ) (sorry Axel) (I mean you shouldn't have been such a jerk DiZ) (you get to live in canon DiZ don't be greedy) (you get to kill DiZ AND keep Roxas Axel don't be greedy).
> 
> Also, sorry if this chapter felt too exposition-y or the characterizations felt off (in my defense re: possible OOCness, literally everyone is in a vr stressful situation in this chapter and also it's my first time actually trying to write KH characters). I'm really just trying to get this stuff out of the way so I can have more fun in the rest of the chapters with Roxas back in the Org and meeting Sora and stuff. Hopefully it'll smooth out later once we start getting to the fun parts :D


End file.
